Science With Miss Codd

The digestive system is how the body breaks down the food we eat into much smaller pieces. By the time the food has reached the small intestine, the pieces useful to the body are so small, they can pass through the intestine wall into the blood stream.

How does the food get broken into smaller pieces? Liquid chemicals are squirted and sloshed onto the food; and the stomach churns up the mixture as well.

Y6 are learning about three main foods the body needs. Proteins get broken into amino acids.

Fats become fatty acids and carbohydrates become sugars like glucose.

The children were given some household liquids and some foods (tuna-protein rich, crumpet-carbohydrate rich, lard 99% fat and smarties-carbohydrate rich) to explore the effects of the liquids on the food.

Everyone predicted then watched the effects of water on mini smarties.

Predictions.

· Colour would come off

· Shell dissolve

· would shrink

· Expand

Results. The sweets lost their colours and became white, then the candy (sugar) coating disappeared and the chocolate in the middle began to change shape.

Conclusions. The food colouring lifted off into the water and the candy coating dissolved into the water. In some the chocolate began to melt.

Now we are leaving the mixture for a while to allow the water to evaporate to see if the colours and sugar are left on the paper.

Exploring household liquids on food.

One group mixed equal quantities of vinegar, washing up liquid and biological washing liquid. Then they put a pipette measure of liquid on a piece of lard, crumpet and tuna fish.

The class decided it would have been fairer if all the pieces of food were the same size. Seeing results would have been quicker if the food had been smaller.